U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin (photo: Lee Zeldin flickr)

U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin, the Republican nominee for governor, was denied the additional general election ballot line for the Independence Party on Thursday after election administrators found his campaign had submitted over 12,000 invalid ballot petition signatures. The petition was reviewed after Libertarian Party officials filed an objection, claiming they found over 11,000 signatures that had been duplicated by photocopy on the document submitted to the state Board of Elections.

Republicans had filed an independent nominating petition for the

Gov. Cuomo appears interested in seeing the demise of New York's smaller political parties (photo: New York Democratic Party)

Included in the bills to approve a state budget for the new fiscal year beginning April 1 was the creation of a new campaign finance system with a public-matching program, lower individual contribution limits, and various other changes to campaign finance law. But the controversial inclusion of changes to ballot thresholds could prove to be a poison pill, not for the law but for the several minor political parties